PILLAR 05 OF 05 Agenda Minnesota · The Indictment Series
The Charge — Documented. Bipartisan. Sixty Years Running.
The furnaces burn. The heat rises. It disappears into the sky. Iron Range families pay full grid rates standing next to it. Both parties. Six decades. Nobody captured it. Nobody tried.
Six Iron Range mining facilities consume 25 million mmBtu of energy every year — all of them classified as high energy users by the U.S. Department of Energy. Between 20 and 50 percent of that energy exits every industrial process as waste heat. Up the stack. Into the atmosphere. Gone.

That waste heat is the equivalent of 65,000 households' worth of electricity. The people who live next to those facilities pay Minnesota Power's full grid rate for electricity. The technology to capture that heat and turn it into 3-cent-per-kilowatt-hour power has been commercially deployed at 25,000 industrial sites globally. The feedstock mineral — tetrahedrite — is abundant in Duluth Complex mine waste and has been since the mines started operating.

Both parties governed while the heat rose and the bills stayed high. Not one administration built the program to capture what was already being produced and already being thrown away.
25M
mmBtu consumed annually — all six Iron Range mines · DOE classified
20–50%
Wasted as heat — going up the stack every day
65,000
Homes worth of electricity disappearing into the atmosphere annually
10.8¢
What Iron Range families pay per kWh standing next to that waste heat
3¢
What they would pay if anyone had built the capture system
$0
Marginal fuel cost — the heat is already being produced
The feedstock mineral — peer-reviewed · Santos et al. 2025
TETRAHEDRITE
Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃
TETRA- what?
A copper antimony sulfosalt mineral. Abundant in Duluth Complex "mine waste." Most operations discard it. In the Kohler program it becomes the semiconductor material in thermoelectric generators that convert smelting heat into electricity. The mine throws it away. The program turns it into power.
This is not science fiction. It exists today. It is peer-reviewed and published. Why are we not capturing it?
Because you can't fix problems with the......
oh, you already know.
3¢
Per kilowatt-hour
documented cost
from tetrahedrite TEGs
Santos et al. (2025)
DOI: 10.3390/ma18061375
You can't fix a problem
with the same mind
that created it.
"The furnaces are running whether or not anyone captures what they release. Right now, nobody does. The fuel is free. The technology is real. The only thing missing is a governor who acts."
Brad Kohler · Candidate for Governor of Minnesota · 2026
↓ What gets thrown away — and what replaces it
The verdict — what sixty years of both parties allowed
The heat rose every day.
The bills stayed high every month.
Both parties watched both happen.
This is not a complex policy failure. The technology to capture industrial waste heat has existed for decades. The ORC market was valued at $2.41 billion in 2024 and is deployed at 25,000 industrial sites worldwide. Cement plants use it. Glass factories use it. Steel mills use it. Minnesota's taconite facilities — which produce higher-grade waste heat than most of those installations — do not. Both parties governed while that continued.
Today — what sixty years built
The Iron Range pays to power the grid while throwing away enough heat to power 65,000 homes.
Waste heat capturedZERO
Thermoelectric programDOES NOT EXIST
Iron Range electricity rate10.8¢/kWh
Average annual household electric bill$924–$1,140
Tetrahedrite mine waste utilizedDISCARDED
Heat from furnacesUp the stack — gone
Value of waste heat to Iron Range residents$0
Kohler plan — the closed loop
Mine waste becomes power. Smelting heat becomes electricity. Iron Range families pay 3¢.
Waste heat captured8–12 TWh/yr
Thermoelectric programOPERATIONAL YEAR 2
Iron Range electricity rate3–8¢/kWh target
Average annual household savings$240–$668/yr
Tetrahedrite mine waste utilizedTEG feedstock
Heat from furnacesCaptured → electricity
Marginal fuel cost$0 — already produced
What both parties allowed — sixty years of it
The technology existed. The feedstock was in the mine waste. The fuel cost was zero. Neither party built it.
The Organic Rankine Cycle system — the primary technology in the Kohler thermoelectric program — was commercially deployed in the 2000s. By 2024 there were more than 25,000 installations globally. None of them are in Minnesota. The taconite pelletizing furnaces that operate at 2,300°F produce higher-grade waste heat than the cement plants and glass factories where ORC is routinely deployed. The Iron Range had a better heat source than most of the 25,000 installations that built the program elsewhere. Both parties let it rise out of the smokestacks for sixty years.
Rate comparison — what Iron Range families pay vs. what the Kohler program delivers
Kohler 3¢ target
3¢ / kWh
baseline
ORC midpoint — realistic
6¢ / kWh
still −44%
Minnesota Power — today
10.8¢ / kWh
what you pay now
MN statewide average
16¢ / kWh
+433% vs. 3¢
The heat rose every day for sixty years.
The bills stayed high every month.
The technology to change it existed the whole time.
The resolution — the closed loop that changes everything
Mine the ore. Smelt it.
Capture the heat. Power the Iron Range.
The fuel is already there.
The Kohler thermoelectric program is not experimental. It applies commercially deployed technology to an existing waste stream using a feedstock mineral — tetrahedrite — that the mines already produce and currently discard. The chain from mine to household is documentable at every step.
Duluth Complex
copper-nickel ore
→
Tetrahedrite
Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ · mine waste
→
TEG Modules
capture smelting heat
→
ORC Systems
industrial scale · commercial
→
3¢ / kWh
Iron Range households
What it means for a family paying an electric bill right now
Based on 713 kWh average monthly consumption — Minnesota Power documented average
Platform target
3¢
↓ $668/yr saved
vs. MN Power today
ORC midpoint
6¢
↓ $412/yr saved
vs. MN Power today
ORC upper range
8¢
↓ $240/yr saved
vs. MN Power today
The platform targets 3¢. Comparable commercial ORC installations deliver 4–8¢. Any number in that range cuts the Iron Range electric bill by 26 to 81 percent. The fuel cost at every point in the range is zero. The heat is already being produced. It is currently being thrown away.
What Kohler does — Year one, 2027 THERMOELECTRIC ACT
→
DOE industrial efficiency grants securedThe Iron Range's six DOE-classified high energy users qualify as priority targets under the DOE Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office programs. Federal grants cover 20–50% of eligible capital costs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and IRA appropriated billions for exactly this type of project.
→
Mining company equity partnership structuredMining companies have direct financial incentive: they currently pay for the heat that gets wasted. A revenue-sharing model gives operators a stake in the electricity the system generates — turning a cost into a revenue stream.
→
Revenue bonds secured against electricity salesThe electricity the thermoelectric system generates has documented market value. Revenue bonds secured against projected electricity sales provide the remaining capital. Standard infrastructure finance for a predictable long-duration revenue stream.
→
3¢ electricity delivered to Iron Range homes and businessesEvery household, every business, every school, every hospital in the Iron Range pays the lowest electricity rate in the industrial Midwest. Industries that currently locate in Ohio and Indiana for cheap power follow the price north. The Iron Range becomes the lowest-cost operating environment in the region.
You can't fix a problem with the same mind that created it.
For 60 years Minnesota has elected the same problem — Democrats and Republicans alike.
During those 60 years, the furnaces burned and the heat rose. Iron Range families stood next to industrial operations that discharged the equivalent of 65,000 households' worth of electricity into the atmosphere every year — and paid full grid rates for power. The technology to capture that heat existed. The feedstock mineral was in the mine waste. The fuel cost was zero. Neither party built the program.
That's unacceptable.
While the furnaces burned and the heat disappeared —
and Iron Range families paid full rates
standing next to it —
is that the Minnesota you want?
Read the Full Case → Back to the Road Map
Sources: MnTAP / University of Minnesota DOE high energy user classification · Santos et al. (2025) DOI 10.3390/ma18061375 · Nature Communications Bu et al. (2022) · Penn State University TEG advance September 2024 · Data Bridge ORC Market Research 2024 · Minnesota Power residential rate March 2025 · EnergySage MN May 2026 · EIA LCOE 2025
Agenda Minnesota — All Five Pillars · Complete
01 · Duluth Complex 02 · Bakken Oil 03 · Safe Schools 04 · Hibbing Airport 05 · Cheap Energy